• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

So why didn't you say this when the National Audit Office reported and gave it a broadly clean bill of health? You did not leap up at that point and say, "It has been fiddled"; and you know that the contracts will not be awarded until the National Audit Office looks at it again. So presumably you are saying publicly today that you want the National Audit Office to investigate your allegation that the Government have fiddled the public sector comparator. If they have, I will be right behind you.

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

John Biggs: There is such - The Mayor: Where do you begin? [Laughter.] John Biggs: I trust I am going to get a couple of opportunities here. First of all, you said that TfL meets in public, but it clearly does not. The board does, but the subsidiary boards meet in private. We have had to lever information out of them by negotiation with TfL, following the budget this year. It does not meet in public; it makes all its important decisions in private. So that is not true. Secondly, it is my view - I do not know whether...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

Sorry: is that what the National Audit Office said? Did they say, "The Government have cynically manipulated the public sector comparator in order that the infracos get through"? They are independent, you know, and they looked at it. They may have said certain things about it - they said that it was not the bee's knees in terms of evaluating every nuance -

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

I think we should record that, because it will be the only part of TfL whose management boards do meet in public. The second question is about the public sector comparator. When I read Lynne Featherstone's question, I thought, "So what??" It begs a number of other questions about the efficient use of money and the project management and asset management skills within the organisation. The fact is - I think you signed up to this when you appeared in front of Gwyneth Dunwoody at the Transport select Committee - that the public sector comparator has been hammered over and...

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

But you are Chair of Transport for London. You have decided to pay the Transport Commissioner. I know that members of the TfL board are sometimes exercised about how they are often cut out of decisions. There is a very close relationship between you and Bob Kiley, and I think you are being a bit disingenuous. In your view, why could Bob Kiley not have given that report to the board in good time, if he was serious? At that point, he was Chair of that board, and if he wanted to have an open meeting, it would have been...

• Question by: Louise Bloom
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

Perhaps this could be an issue for London MPs, particularly London Labour MPs if they were prepared to do it, which is highly doubtful. But perhaps this issue can be pushed, because, as you say, it is clearly ridiculous that this information is not available and that we just do not know. When we take over the Tube, we are expected suddenly to find out this information. I cannot believe that nobody knows; I suspect that we are just not being told

• Question by: Louise Bloom
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

I wanted to return to the question of rolling stock and stations being renewed. We managed to get this information out of Lord Falconer in the Lords after questioning by a Liberal Democrat peer, Tim Razzell. The Mayor: A politician called "Raddle"? Louise Bloom: Razzell - Razzle-Dazzle from Richmond. Tony knows him well; that is why he is looking grumpy. London Underground's website lists 56 stations that are due for renewal between now and April 2006. No mention is made of start dates for renewing rolling stock. We are told that there will be no new vehicles until the second...

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

Some of us think that the Government missed a great opportunity after the general election, with a new Secretary of State and so on, to draw a line under it and start again. They did not: they just repeated everything they were saying before the election. Do you have any reason at all for optimism that the Government line will change after the court case, and that what you are saying is likely to come about?

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

I assume, and hope, that you would want to abide by this wonderful document "The Greater London Authority Planning Code of Conduct", which the Legal Department provided to me. For those Members who have not read it recently, it talks about transparency, openness of information, fairness and the involvement of Assembly Members. We are not seeing the publication of reports of meetings with potential developers or interested parties. There is no secure system for Assembly Members to be invited to those meetings, as they ought be under the code; and we do not seem to have any system for making...

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

One point occurs to me as your Planning Adviser: if developers have access, how are communities to have access? I do not say that what you have said does not stand up, but how are those other interests to have access? That needs to be thought about.